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Pathfinder Wiki talk:Administrators
Inactive administrators I noticed yesterday, while looking through various users' contributions pages, that Alfred has not made an edit on the wiki since 13 August 2008. We don't have a policy in place for this, but I think we should denote those administrators who are inactive so that new editors direct questions and concerns toward active admins instead. I think six months to a year is sufficient enough time for an admin to be inactive before they are denoted as so. Of course, no changes in privileges would made when an admin changes status.--yoda8myhead 07:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC) :I think 6 months is a good amount of time, unless the admin tells everyone the reason for being away for longer.--brandingopportunity 18:33, 13 July 2009 (UTC) Nominating new administrators Along similar lines to the above, I think we should have a set of guidelines in place to add new administrators to the project, something which, until now has just been something members wishing to have the privileges have simply asked a bureaucrat for. So I open the discussion on how we should proceed with this action in the future. -- yoda8myhead 07:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC) Is Six Months Too Long? I'm wondering if six months is too long to wait to make an admin inactive. What if somebody tries to contact an admin who is AWOL, and doesn't get an answer from them? Hopefully they try engaging another member of the community, but I can also see the possibility of them assuming the worst and giving up. A shorter period of inactivity would mitigate this. Any figure I propose would be pretty much arbitrary, but something like 3 months feels better to me.--Aeakett 21:06, 14 July 2009 (UTC) :It may be. I originally thought a year, but I now see that that's way too long. We should avoid a time limit that makes Admins feel any pressure to be active if they have real life issues going on or if their interest wanes (not that being made inactive is a punishment). In the current situation, though, Alfred has been inactive for over 11 months, so I think he should definitely be moved to inactive (which I have done) and I don't think that HA and I can handle the workload, especially as he's an Admin on other wikis as well. So I'm less concerned with pinning down the specifics of this element of the policy and more on first defining the role of an Admin to both meet the site's needs and to clearly indicate to new users what an admin does and doesn't do and second setting up a process of get new people into Admin positions as well. -- yoda8myhead 21:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC) An admin is not a decider... or is he? The first point of "An Admin is not..." is tricky. In many ways they are deciders. Admins may be forced to make judgment calls under certain circumstances. And really, that is kind of their job, to be a sort of benevolent dictator. On the other hand I totally understand why you make the point, and even go so far as to make it first. I'm just concerned that down the road somebody may point to this page and use it as a soap box or arguing point in a disagreement. --Aeakett 22:04, 14 July 2009 (UTC) : this is exactly the reason we have the templates like the 'up for deletion' template, where the community can weigh in on if there is a good reason for a particular crunchy piece to be there (such as we have had with prices and auras for magic items). The Admin may initially deem something to crunchy, but be overturned by the community at large. - Cpt kirstov 22:13, 14 July 2009 (UTC) ::Oh yeah, I totally get that. Our admins are awesome, but I think that we should be up front that we are giving them a huge responsibility, AND the power to make final decisions. Yoda8myhead, Heaven's Agent, and the whole community have always seemed to value transparency, and I just think that we should be clear in this case too. --Aeakett 22:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC) :::You bring up a good point here and I can certainly see someone returning to this down the road to point of hypocrisy or whatever. And to that I say "fine." As an Admin, I answer to the community, and if someone feels that I am not justly administering the policies determined by that community, I want that to be said. As Cpt mentions, we have templates and categories in place to aid the community in weighing in on issues and taking part in the process. Until very recently, we have not really had a lot of back and forth from more than one or two people on any issue. But if I, or another Admin or a regular user were to place a deletion tag on a page and then no one said anything about it, that is the choice of the community to ignore it or not participate in the discourse. If I were to not delete that page, I am not upholding my responsibility as Admin to adjudicate the policies of the project. There are situations where Admins would decide on issues which have reached an impasse, as outlined in the policy revision discussion, but these are rare and would only occur under specific circumstances and would be handled according to an agreed-upon procedure. :::But I get your point and think that the point could be more clearly phrased in the policy page to indicate the role of an Admin. I wrote all this up late last night while waiting for the new blog to go live at midnight Seattle time, so there may be several spots that could be improved. -- yoda8myhead 23:42, 14 July 2009 (UTC) ::::This is a very good point to bring up. Even though the role of an Admin isn't one of decider, part of being an Admin is stepping in and taking on that responsibility when needed. Thankfully, it's not a responsibility a single Admin should have to take on alone; such instances are times when all a project's Admins should come to a conclusion together, be it by consensus or vote. To reiterate Mark's statement, we're here to support the community. We should be answering directly to the project's chroniclers, and if something seems amiss then we hope someone will call us on it. ::::Perhaps a good way to express this is to add a line to the top of what and Admin is; we're intermediaries, and though it's not our purpose or desire to decide matters and discussions within the project, it's our responsibility to do so in order to ensure they are resolved in a timely manner and in situations were those involved cannot come to a consensus. -- Heaven's Agent 17:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC) Number of Admins I'm of a mind that the minimum number of active Admins should be no less than three, and that Admins should be added to ensure an odd number is maintained. As has been mentioned elsewhere an odd number is beneficial for instance when a vote has to be taken, especially surrounding matters of policy. The maximum number of Admins, however, is a difficult number to define. I can't think of any concrete method of determining when to add new Admins, nor have I been able to locate any reliable defined methods used by other projects. Ultimately, I think the only ones that can decide when a new Admin is required are the current Admins of a project. They're the only ones that will know how much of their time a project is demanding, and when additional numbers are needed to keep things running smoothly. Anyone should be able to nominate a new Admin when they feel such is needed, but whether such a nomination is acted upon should fall to those already doing the job. -- Heaven's Agent 17:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC) :I agree that three should be a minimum and we should always strive for an odd number. I could see that making the number of admins grow quickly if every time we reach an odd number someone goes inactive, but that's a bridge we have to cross when we get there. -- yoda8myhead 17:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC) What are "administrative edits"? I was thinking this morning that we might want to clarify what constitutes administrative edits. Not to discourage non-Admins from making these edits, but to distinguish the types of non-content maintenance that is expected of Admins. Some that come to mind are minor edits to keep consistent style and formatting, template creation and maintenance, category sorting, and overseeing policy discussions such as this one. Setting these tasks as an Admin's responsibility frees non-Admins up to focus on content but could result in people just assuming an Admin will fix all their mistakes and lead to laziness or apathy. So I'm not sure if this level of detail in explaining an Admin's role should be included in the main policy itself. --yoda8myhead 17:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC) Admin nomination: Aeakett Since Heaven's Agent and I are pretty overwhelmed at the moment, I think it's time to nominate a new Admin. I mentioned this to both Brandingopportunity and Cpt_kirstov at GenCon and both said they weren't really interested. That made it easier for me to nominate the person I had in mind in the first place–Aeakett. Since he first came aboard the project he has willingly undertaken administrative tasks such as the modification and implementation of the manual of style, deletion templates, policy revisions, and other non-content-creating projects. He was instrumental in getting our bots up and running. He also volunteered to take up the mantle of keeping the featured content on the Main Page queued up. Overall, he's doing an Admin's work now, but without Admin privileges. Adding the ability to delete pages will simply make the work he's already doing easier. — yoda8myhead 19:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC) :I would second this nomination. I've been thoroughly impressed by Aeakett's work and dedication to the project. Being that a wiki's contributors work on a voluntary basis, it's rare to find someone that shows such diligence toward the improvement of a project. He's gone above even this, though, in stepping forward and undertaking projects that, as you pointed out, should be the responsibility of an Admin. Should he accept, I fully support Aeakett's elevation to such a role. -- Heaven's Agent 20:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC) ::As I said at GenCon, I was going to nominate him myself once everything settled down... as such I third this nomination wholeheartedly. -- Cpt kirstov 22:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC) :::After taking some time to think about it, I'd be glad to accept the nomination, and the responsibilities of being an admin (should that be the consensus). --Aeakett 17:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC) ::::Current policy says that active Admins should take a vote on a nominee if there are no objections, and I don't think we'll see any, as all the active members of the board have chimed in either here or over dinner at GenCon. Since both HA and I agree on the issue, and since you accept, I'll go ahead and add sysop privileges to your account. Congrats and welcome to the Admin team. Let either of us know if you have questions about any of the new features that will be available to you. -- yoda8myhead 20:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC) Admin nomination: Brandingopportunity Since neither Heaven's Agent nor Alfred are particularly active, and given our increased visibility with the ENnie nomination, I think having another Admin may be a good idea. Few contributors have been as active as long as Brandingopportunity, nor taken the same level of initiative in terms of growing the community and improving the project from a non-content side. His articles are consistently top-notch, being both well-written and thorough. Granting him the ability to handle deletions, page locks, and vandal bans would simply give him additional tools to do the administrative job he's already been doing. — yoda8myhead 17:26, July 13, 2010 (UTC) :Agreed on all fronts. -- Cpt kirstov 18:58, July 13, 2010 (UTC) :Uh... DUH! Agreed. —aeakett 23:40, July 13, 2010 (UTC) :: I'm going to go ahead and grant Alex admin privileges. I don't hear any dissent, nor do I foresee any, so congrats to our newest Admin! —yoda8myhead 16:44, July 19, 2010 (UTC) :::A little late to toss in any input, but it seems like a good decision to me. Congrats, and well deserved! -- Heaven's Agent 03:13, July 20, 2010 (UTC)